It’s not unusual for a person to stop by my office because they need to talk. Sometimes it’s just for a venting session, which I can totally get behind. Everybody needs a good vent every once and a while. Sometimes it’s a grief that feels too heavy to carry alone, so they come by to share it for a while. I am honoured to listen and to carry it a while. Sometimes people come by because they don’t know where else to turn – maybe they have a question about the church, about God, about life, about the world. Quite honestly, of all the reasons that people find themselves in my office, it’s the questions that sometimes cause me to pause. It isn’t that I don’t like questions – God knows I have plenty of them myself. It’s the answers piece, because often I don’t have an answer. Really depends on the question, mind you. Ask me about where the candles are, I can answer that.
Let me give you an example… a few years ago, before I left Regina, a person came by the office to talk. They had a lot going on, and I was ready to listen and to help them sift through all the things. In the midst of the conversation, they asked this: what do you really believe about this Jesus you keep talking about?
Now, if you know me or have spent time with me in Bible Study when we talk about the Trinity, you’d know that I have lots of thoughts about Jesus. I’ve spent my entire vocation thinking about Jesus – that’s three decades or more. So I have thoughts. But I also know that there are moments when our beliefs can become stumbling blocks for others and that’s not okay. I also know that what I believe may not reflect what the person sitting next to me believes. That is both the joy and challenge of a theologically and Christologically (how you understand the divinity of Christ) diverse church. So, when this question was asked, I paused. Back then and even now.
At the time, I paused to consider the expected answers that would come from “The Reverend”… Jesus is the Son of God, the Word made Flesh, Redeemer, Savior, Prince of Peace etc. I wondered if I should go the Historical Jesus route: Jesus was a Jewish Rabbi born in Judea, who really liked his Manischewitz (really sweet Jewish wine) and shook up the status quo? These are all fine answers, text book answers even, but what does any of that say about what I believe? And more importantly how would any of that help the person who was sitting in my office that day?
Did I believe that Jesus was flexible, changeable, adaptable enough to meet us in the various moments of life we find ourselves in? Was I presumptuous to believe I knew what they needed to hear? As the pause extended into what I could only assume was an awkward silence instead of a quick ponder, I panicked and ended up saying something simple like “I guess I believe Jesus is different for each of us, and tends to be exactly what we need when we need him?” The person looked at me slightly disappointed. It was a wishy washy safe answer when they needed something to hold on to.
The thing about Jesus is, well, he can be complicated. The scripture holds so many sides of him. Lots of people have lots of opinions and theories and thoughts about him, and to top it all off, we aren’t all taught the same things about Jesus. In addition, as we mature and as we experience life, our perceptions and beliefs about Jesus mature and change. What you believed about Jesus when you were five is not the same as you believe now. What you thought and believed about Jesus five years ago, even a year ago, might have shifted and changed as well. In the United Church, we don’t tend to push the “personal relationship with our Lord and Savior” aspect of belief all that much. We don’t do altar calls to take Jesus into your heart. My friend Nora told me about asking her mom about such ideas and she responded that ideas like that were drivel, self-serving and Jesus wasn’t about “self” he was about “other”. There are people who have such a deep connection to Jesus that they truly feel him there, like a best friend or constant companion.
So what do we do when our Christology, our belief in the person and divinity of Jesus, is stretched between wanting to serve others, while being a good disciples, all the while trying to be logical and historical but also deeply wanting that personal connection to something bigger than we are that seems to offer the strength and courage to make it through the hard days?
Sometimes It’s easier to pin down what we DON’T believe, you know, all the what we know Jesus is NOT. I know he isn’t a good luck charm. He is not a political mascot. Although in our context he is often used as both of those things. I know he is not a fairy godmother or granter of wishes. I also know he isn’t a metaphor. There was a historical man name Jesus, or rather his name was likely Joshua (Jesus is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Joshua). And I know that this name has survived thousands of years of history and THAT must mean something.
I also think that it’s kinda neat that for every culture that claims Jesus, he ends up looking like them. We have the blonde haired blue eyed Jesus carrying the lambs and knocking on doors that most of us grew up with. I also trust that while that has been the predominate image for our society we understand that he wouldn’t have looked that way. Jesus was a middle eastern man. He would have had dark skin, dark eyes and dark hair. But I think Jesus would have been cool with how there’s also an African Jesus, a Japanese Jesus, an Indigenous Jesus, a Mexican Jesus… you get the point. This all makes me think that what he actually looked like isn’t that important any more… or maybe its that what he’s now supposed to look like is “home” and that will be different for each of us, and that is okay.
And then I came upon an essay written by Sarah Bessey, a Canadian author who has written a number of books over the years, like “A Rhythm of Prayer,” “Fieldnotes for the Wilderness” and “Miracles and other Reasonable Things: the Story of Unlearning and Relearning God.” Anyhow, in this essay she wrote: “Many aspects of how I understand and try to follow Jesus have changed over the decades, but it turns out that I still really love Jesus even if that looks different than it once did. Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever, sure, but our understanding of Jesus is always evolving.”
An evolving Christ. What a gift! I mean, it doesn’t answer the questions we have about Jesus, but it opens a door. And we are going to walk through that door for the next couple of weeks. Of course, Jesus famously never directly said “I am the Messiah!” (Cue Monty Python “Life of Brian” fans here) but he did lay out a number of IDEAS of who and what he was… which leads us to the gospel of John.
Collectively known as the “I am” statements, these were Jesus’ way of answering the “who are you” questions asked by the people of his time. Some of the folk, genuinely wanted to know, while others seemed eager to manipulate more miracles out him as proof. And some folk seemed to be more of the “Who do you think you are? You’re nothing special… we know your parents!” kind of tone.
Now, for the author of the Gospel of John, Jesus’ divinity (his relationship to God or his Godliness) was of the utmost importance. Which is all fine and good, but in the I am statements of Jesus, he uses bread and light and shepherd and vine which highlights a Christology in light of Jesus’ relationship to humanity rather than God.
Kathleen Norris wrestled with this tension between Jesus as God and Jesus as human when she reflected on Gregory Wolfe’s comment that “when emphasis is placed on the divine at the expense of the human… Jesus becomes an ethereal authority figure who is remote from earthly life and experience. When he is thought of as merely human… he becomes nothing more than a superior social worker or popular guru.” (Amazing Grace, p.162). Norris, however, in response to this thought found meaning and value in standing between the two, of “… living with the paradox, accepting the ways that seeming dualities can work together in Jesus and in our own lives.” As such she chose to reject simplistic dualism and embrace the creative tension that Jesus himself invited.
With that thought, a whole new world of who and what Jesus is for us opens. This is a world that has more questions than answers, and it also has more hope and love than we can possibly imagine. All of which, it would seem, makes space for the idea that Jesus is this incredible source of connection, showing how close God really is to Creation, while showing how we can allow this connection to shift how we choose to live and move in the world around us.
Bessy, in her essay, continued “…for better or for worse, my attempts at following Jesus are still the centre of my own faith experience and understanding… I still believe following Jesus matters deeply for our current moment in time. It impacts how we show up for our neighbours, how we move through our lives, how we heal the world, and how we see one another and even how we experience God.”
Perhaps exploring the Unexpected Jesus will confirm what you already hold to be true, or maybe your understanding of him will shift a little, as it tends to do with new experiences and learnings. Maybe what we will stumble upon will be surprising, maybe it won’t be. Maybe it will confirm suspicions you already had about Jesus. And maybe that’s just what this wounded world of ours needs right now. Maybe the world really needs an unexpected Jesus… a prophet, teacher, minister, friend, divine representative… who shows up in unexpected places, who loves in unexpected ways, who uses unexpected words, and who invites us into an unexpected, life giving, holy relationship. Shall we open the door?
Amen, and amen.
